Identification, memory, elaboration. The importance of time in the context of the TV series fruition

Starting with the assumption that mechanical pictures have had the biggest impact on pictorial narration Homo sapiens has ever engaged with, in this paper we will try to collect some evidence in order to summarize what we nowadays know about the effects of a long-lasting mechanical picture exposure. The main hypothesis is that TV series are powerful storytelling products that alter the cognitive mechanism – known in literature as “source monitoring” – that allows the distinction between reality and fiction. As perceivers, we engage in a perceptual relationship with pictures surrounding us. They employ a visual retroactive effect on our cognition, namely memory alteration effects that may be elicited by both ethic and aesthetic judgments of perceivers: what would I have done in her shoes (ethical judgement)? What would I have felt in her shoes (aesthetical judgment)? We will argue that the time needed for TV series fruition is the most important variable for this psychological phenomenon. More precisely, we distinguish between fruition time and elaboration time. By proposing a comparison between different visual media products, we will show both experimental data and philosophical arguments emphasizing the role of long-lasting picture exposure and visual feature of tales for the insurgence of source misattribution. More importantly, we will furthermore try to address the role of mental imagery in this scenario, showing how the phenomenological correspondence between mental imagery and picture perception, along with the normal process of mnemonic retrieval, are crucial for the occurrence of source misattribution.